Advice on building a new HTPC

[elsmandino]

Hello.

I am building an HTPC, which has got to be quiet and efficient. It will not be used for gaming, but has to be capable of producing full 1080p picture quality/playing blu-ray.

The computer is going to be plugged into my tv in the lounge and I eventually intend to wire cat6 all over my house, via a gigabyte router - so I can stream live or recorded tv to two other televisions via media extenders.

I also have a sat dish with twin lnb and an external aerial, so the computer has got to be capable (in the unlikely event) of recording two channels, whilst allowing live tv to be watched in the living room as well as streaming a recording to one of the media extenders all at the same time - this will not happen very often, but probably will happen eventually.

The computer is going to be used as a replacement for my DVR, so it needs to come out of sleep mode properly and come on automatically to record and return to S3 afterwards.

I have come up with the following spec machine and would be really grateful for you comments and any changes you would suggest - or any incompatibilities I may have missed.

Hard drive - F3 1TB Samsung (I looked at 5400 rpm hard drives, but although they are quieter, decided that I would need a 7,200 rpm hard drive for simultaneous recording and streaming)

PSU - Corsari 550VX

Mobo - Asus MSN78-EM (this has 2 x pci slots, 1x pci 1 and 1 x pci 16 and NVIDIA GeForce 8300 chipset)

TV Tuner cards (three of them) - 2 PCI Hauppage WinTV Nova HD S2 Tuner cards (for two freesat channels) and 1 Hauppauge HVR 2200 MCE Dual Hybrid PCI Express card (for two digital channels)

Case - Antec Fusion Remote Max

CPU - Athlon II x2 240

OS - Windows 7, using media centre as the front end

Optical Drive - LG Blu-Ray

RAM - 2 x 2GB 800Mhz DDR2 RAM (I know that 2GB would be enough, but RAM is pretty cheap so thought I would go the whole hog)

Your comments would be greatly appreciated before I take the plunge

Thx

[staffsMike]

All looks good for what you need, I would just swap the PSU to the 450VX or even better for cabling the 450HX, both based on seasonic units rather than less desirable CWT unit's (like the 550VX).

[elsmandino]

Thanks for that - I have done a bit more research and apparently I shouldn't notice any difference using a 5,400 rpm hard drive in the machine - would you agree with this?

It has also been recommended that I should use an intel cpu instead as they tend to run slightly cooler and are slightly more efficient. Do you think I should go the intel route?

Thx

[badass]

One thing to bare in mind with the Hauppage cards is that their drivers tend to be rubbish.
My WinTV Nova TD Stick's remote keeps going mental and does not work at all when the PC has come out of standby, requiring a reset before the remote works again.

[Methanoid]

Asus Pundit.. small and quiet! 780G or 9300 models do 1080P no problems.

Check out the BlackGold BGT3540 for 2xDVB-T plus 2xDVB-S cards on a single PCI-E x1 card. If waiting for the new model then buy the Pinnacle 3010ix (£15 inc del) for 2xDVB-T while waiting. Saves you money over the Hauppauge ones.

[scaryjim]

For HTPC usage a Sempron 140 *should* be sufficient (assuming your media software uses GPU acceleration), and has a lower power draw. Also, my experimentation suggests that the Sempron / Athlon II X2 (which are actually the same processor, with a core turned off to make the Sempron) can run well undervoltage. I currently have my Sempron undervolted from 1.32v stock to 1.15v (this drops to < 0.9v when Cool 'n' Quiet is enabled!) and have had no stability issues watching iPlayer (which is *not* GPU enabled so loads the CPU) or with light gaming. If your motherboard allows undervolting this would be a good way to keep power draw and temps down.

Oh, for reference I'm using the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO

[elsmandino]

Thanks for that, further research and my specs are now as follows:

Mobo: ?? - Nvidia board with onboard graphics and e-sata (decided against a 785G board, due to current problems with ATI graphics drivers
and BBC HD)
CPU: Athlon II X2 240
Modular PSU: Corsair 450 HX
HDD: F3 1TB Spinpoint (Paritioned) - or possibly 1TB Eco Green, but possibly 5,400 rpm too slow for mutliple streams?
Operating System: Windows 7 32-bit, using MCE as the front end
Case: Antec Fusion Remote Max
Optical Drive: LG Blu-Ray
RAM: 2x2GB of RAM (brand and speed undecided)
TV Tuner card: Black Gold BGT3595 (apparently coming out next month)

I would be very grateful for your recommendations on a decent Nvidia board that will be fit my purposes and your general comments on the build.

[Methanoid]

IMHO mistake. What problems with 780/785G drivers? Anyway the Nvidia/AMD combo is based on 8200 which is OK but not as good as the 9300 in the Nvidia/Intel combo. I'd suggest 8200 < 780/785 < 9300 but its not a given fact by any stretch!

[elsmandino]

http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...hreadid=117619
Talks about problems with getting HD via freesat, with ATI chipset.

If you were me would you go the 785g or nvidia 9300 route? What are the main pros and cons of each?

[{S.G}Monkey]

Two choices on GPU's really

Go for an ATI and hope that it works or hope that it doesn't overheat

Or go with an nVidia

[Methanoid]

Isnt that all for Windows 7 users? I mean you can hardly expect flawless performance when its still in beta isnt it.... I wonder if its all fine with XP ?